![]() One of the my favorite explanations has always been that the stripes protect against the savanna’s most fearsome creature: the tsetse fly. Others have pointed out that every zebra has a unique set of stripes, and that these stocky equids might use these patterns to identify herd members, mates, or even mothers (if you’re a hungry foal). Some researchers have mused that the bold patterns disrupt the perception of predators, and that when the zebras run en masse from an attacking lion, they become a confusing jumble of stripes into which the initial target disappears. I mean, how much more could you stand out from the open plains of waving gold grass? But at dawn and dusk, especially from a distance, the stripes seem to bleed into gray, making them look a surprising lot like elephants (no joke), or rocks, or even nothing at all. Still, up close they still look like bright black-on-white zebras, and it’s hard to imagine that any lion lurking in the thickets nearby would be fooled. Their starkly contrasting black and white stripes have puzzled researchers and naturalists for a long time.įor starters, the stripes seem like they would be terrible camouflage. Now, we don’t have anything quite that camouflaged in the Serengeti, but in watching that video my thoughts turned to one of our more strikingly colored species: the zebra. While procrastinating on this lovely Sunday afternoon, I stumbled across this incredible video of a octopus camouflage in action: I’ll take any of these noises over the sounds of the city any day. Lions: And finally, for the best, non-hollywood lion roar, scroll about halfway down through our lion research center’s page. ![]() To learn more about hyena vocalizations, check out this blog by hyena expert and director of Masai Mara’s long-term hyena project, Kay Holekamp. Similar to human voices, hyena vocalizations are individually recognizable to clan-mates. The laugh at 2:33 is a sign of nervousness or submission. The whoop, which you hear at 0:05 and 0:55, is a long-distance call often used to rally scattered clan members. They have a rather large repertoire of very…unusual…vocalizations that are used to communicate in a number of situations. Hyenas: Despite being hell-bent on devouring all of my camera traps, these guys are pretty cool. Wildebeest: I believe that somewhere in the annals of Zooniverse blogs, there is an audio or video clip of me doing a wildebeest impression. Zebras: Nothing like horses, these stripy equids sound something like a braying donkey crossed with a barking dog. I couldn’t actually figure out how to upload audio files, so I scoured Youtube for the best audio clips I could find and embedded them as videos here. The sounds really are incredible and often unbelievable, and I thought I’d share some of them with you. Nothing like the otherworldly chorus of the Serengeti savanna that Lucy so beautifully described. Occasionally I get chattered at by an angry squirrel in the back yard. From my slightly sketchy corner of Saint Paul, I hear fire crackers and unmuffled engines roaring. The sounds of the bush are one of the many, many things I miss being back here in civilization. I mean, how many of you out there have actually ever heard a fox? ![]() It’s pretty catchy, not just because it’s ridiculous, but because it’s a pretty good question. Stay tuned!īy now, you have probably heard of this silly (but hilarious) video that’s been making the rounds of the interwebs lately: We also plan to have more fun to share before December is over. It’s just a small token of our thanks for a great year. It is extremely high resolution (and 70 MB big!) so if you want to, you can print it out to be several feet across! Below is the zebra’s nose. We then take a nice, simple capture of a Zebra and use a wonderful piece of software (called Andreamosaic) to generate this poster for you all. This poster was created using a pool of more than 16,000 zebra identified by the Snapshot Serengeti community. It’s a thank you to everyone that’s been supporting us for the last year: a zebra made from zebra. It’s advent, and that means it’s time for the Zooniverse Advent Calendar. Last year Snapshot Serengeti itself was hiding behind one the doors of the calendar – that means we’re nearly a year old! Today we appear on the 2013 calendar with this post, and the meta-zebra.
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